Deleuze, Japanese Cinema, and the Atom Bomb: The Spectre of Impossibility

343 Pages·2014·1.7 MB·English

by  David Deamer

Deleuze, Japanese Cinema, and the Atom Bomb
Thinking Cinema
Series Editors
David Martin-Jones, University of Glasgow, UK
Sarah Cooper, King’s College, University of London, UK
Volume 1
Deleuze, Japanese Cinema, and the Atom Bomb
Deleuze, Japanese Cinema,
and the Atom Bomb
The Spectre of Impossibility
David Deamer
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2014
© David Deamer, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
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accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deamer, David.
Deleuze, Japanese cinema, and the atom bomb : the spectre of impossibility /
David Deamer.
pages cm. -- (Thinking cinema ; volume 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4411-7815-2 (hardback)
1. Motion pictures--Japan--History--20th century. 2. Nuclear warfare in motion
pictures. 3. Motion pictures--Philosophy. 4. Deleuze, Gilles, 1925-1995. I. Title.
PN1993.5.J3D43 2014
791.430952’09045--dc23
2014004627
ISBN: 978-1-4411-4909-1
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
in memory, Lee
for Jill and Nyah

Contents
List of Tables ix
List of Images xi
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction: Event, Cinema, Cineosis 1
1 Special Images, Contingent Centres 31
Movement-images: Bergson, sensory-motor process
The Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1946);
Children of the Atom Bomb (1952); Godzilla (1954)
2 Horizons of History 75
Action-images: Nietzsche, history
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975); Lucky Dragon No. 5 (1959);
Barefoot Gen (1983); Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984);
Akira (1988)
3 Traces: Symptoms and Figures 121
Impulse-images and reflection-images: Peirce, semiosis
The Naked Island (1960); Dead or Alive (1999); Ring (1998);
Kwaidan (1964); The Face of Another (1966); Navel and
A-bomb (1960); Tetsuo (1989); Face of Jizo (2004)
4 Consummation (and Crisis) 171
Mental-images: Bergson, memory
I Live in Fear (1955); Rashomon (1950); Dreams (1990);
Rhapsody in August (1991)
5 Impure Anarchic Multiplicities 217
Time-images: Deleuze, syntheses of time
Casshern (2004); The Pacific War (1968); A History of Postwar
Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970); Black Rain (1989);
Hiroshima (1953)
viii Contents
Conclusion: Spectres of Impossibility 273
Notes 277
Select Bibliography 309
Select Filmography 315
Index 317
List of Tables
1.1 The primary coordinates of Deleuze’s movement-image
after Bergson 37
1.2 Perception-image 45
1.3 Affection-image 54
1.4 The five laws of the large form action-image: situation → action →
(new) situation (SAS') 63
1.5 Action-image (large form) 64
1.6 The three varieties of the action-image (large form) 65
2.1 The five laws of the action-image (large form) and universal history 90
2.2 Action-image (small form) 97
2.3 The action-image (small form) and people’s history 99
3.1 Peirce’s semiotic schema by division 124
3.2 Peirce’s semiotic schema by class 125
3.3 The fundamental co-ordinates of Peirce’s semiosis with Bergson’s
sensory-motor schema in respect to Deleuze’s movement-images 127
3.4 Deleuze’s full extension of movement-images after Peirce 129
3.5 Impulse-image 134
3.6 Movement-images mapped against the extreme poles of idealism
and realism 139
3.7 Figures: from Fontanier to Deleuze 145
3.8 Attraction-image 148
3.9 Inversion-image 153
3.10 Discourse-image 163
4.1 Sensory-motor system and pure memory 174
4.2 Movement-image and time-image after Bergson 178
4.3 Recollection-image 192
4.4 Dream-image 202
4.5 Relation-image 210
5.1 Deleuze’s syntheses of time 220
5.2 Time-images and the three passive and impassive syntheses
of time 226